Reviews of latest books and articles on authors - Frontline

Rohin Bhatt merges their roles as a queer lawyer and activist to document India’s pivotal marriage equality case, where the Supreme Court denied same-sex couples the right to marry.

There is no other way of surviving other than hoping: Rohin Bhatt

The non-binary lawyer chronicles the fight for queer marriage rights in India.

Mridula Vijayarangakumar

Samantha Harvey poses with the trophy and her book Orbital after winning the Booker Prize award 2024, in London, on November 12, 2024.

2024 Booker Prize

In choosing Samantha Harvey’s Orbital, Booker Prize speaks for a planet in crisis

From the confines of the International Space Station, the novel offers a powerful meditation on humanity’s relationship with a vulnerable Earth.

Frontline News Desk

New books on the shelves

A feminist retelling of a story from the Mahabharata, the memoir of a Sri Lankan Tamil transwoman, and much more.

The invisible she: How working-class women bear the weight of India’s economy

Neha Dixit’s The Many Lives of Syeda X is uniquely authentic and eye-opening in portraying womenfolk in big South Asian cities.

The book also wades into the “memory- wars” taking place around the places of worship (Gyanvapi, Ayodhya) and historical figures (such as Aurangzeb). Here, an aerial view of the Gyanvapi mosque (left) and the Kashi Vishwanath temple on the banks of the Ganges in Varanasi in December 2021.

Muslims in New India: A survival story

Hilal Ahmed’s latest book says Muslims in contemporary India are not passive victims; they are adapting to survive and thrive within the constraints.

Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Message hits too close to the bone

A new book has ruffled feathers by reminding America of its full complicity in the ongoing massacre in Palestine.

A worthy follow-up to Tomb of Sand

Geetanjali Shree’s latest novel in translation captures the moral degradation and erosion of the secular compact in the 1990s, after the Babri Masjid

More stories from Books

Depictions of scenes from the life of the Buddha in the temple of Borobudur, Indonesia.

Sea change: How maritime connections enabled ancient India’s global impact

Dalrymple shows how traders and monks sailed beyond borders, turning India into the ancient world’s cultural powerhouse.

College students led a rally as part of the anti-Hindi agitations, in Coimbatore in February 1965.

How anti-Hindi protests of the 1960s created India’s most successful regional political movement

The agitation proved singular: it toppled a regime, rewrote India’s language policy, and established Dravidian party rule that continues even today.

Karthick Ram Manoharan

Poster of Alam Ara (1931), often regarded as India’s first talkie.

Queer love and freedom in 1920s India

Ruth Vanita’s historical examines scans queer desire, cinema, and modernisation through interconnected lives in 1920s Bombay and Delhi.

Eleven of the 15 women members of the Constituent Assembly: back row (standing, from left): Kamala Chaudhri, Sucheta Kripalani, G. Durgabai, Begum Qudsia Aizaz Rasul, Purnima Banerji, Dakshayani Velayudhan. Front row (sitting, from left): Renuka Ray, Hansa Mehta, Amrit Kaur, Annie Mascarene, Ammu Swaminathan.

‘History books invisibilised contributions of women leaders in forging modern India’

Angellica Aribam and Akash Satyawali, authors of The Fifteen, on how 15 women fought patriarchy and helped shape the world’s longest constitution.

Abhinav Chakraborty

New books on the shelves

A Japanese cat book classic in translation, a treatise on shudra nationalism in Indian history, and much more.

Safdar Hashmi in “Aya Chunav”, Janam’s first political play performed in Hissar, Haryana, in 1981.

Safdar Hashmi’s transformative approach to theatre as a democratic force

Through plays like Hatyare and Aurat, Hashmi tackled communalism and gender issues while building an inclusive, collaborative artistic practice.

Novelist Han Kang, delivers her first public speech after winning the Nobel Prize in Literature at the 18th Pony Chung Innovation Award ceremony in Seoul, South Korea, on October 17, 2024.

Korea through Han Kang’s The Vegetarian

Han’s novel critiques Korean society and the violence that lies beneath its surface. This year’s Nobel Prize honours her statement of resistance.

A public protest against the proposed passing of laws against “love jehad” in Bengaluru on December 1, 2020.

Love in the time of ‘love jehad’: The complex lives of Hindu-Muslim couples in India

Ashis Roy explores the everyday challenges of urban middle-class Hindu-Muslim couples even as it deftly challenges toxic generalisations.

Chintan Girish Modi

The “Terrific Ten” who in 1997 were assembled by The New Yorker for the “Group Shot”: (top to bottom, first column) Amit Chaudhuri, Arundhati Roy, Vikram Chandra, (middle row) Kiran Desai, Amitav Ghosh, Ardashir Vakil, Salman Rushdie, (last column) Rohinton Mistry, Anita Desai, and Vikram Seth.

A photograph captured ten novelists who transformed Indian writing forever—and marked the end of an era

Revisiting The New Yorker’s iconic 1997 photograph of 10 “original gangsters” of the Indian English novel.

Shivendra Singh

An inscription in the 13th century Siddham script, from which the modern Odia alphabet has been derived, at Ananta Vasudeva Temple, Bhubaneswar.

What defines ‘Odia literature’?

Is it the language, the land, or the cultural identity that makes literature truly Odia?

Scenes from daily life in Allepey, Kerala.

Stories that are close to the bone

From menstrual taboos to interfaith marriage: Shahina K. Rafiq’s unabashed collection reveals intimate truths of Indian women’s lives.

Chittajit Mitra

Fresh piper nigrum on the tree.

Pepper trail

Anusua Mukherjee

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